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Like others, I have read through quite a lot of diaries and think it's time I finally started my own mortgage free quest. We recently bought our dream home 2 years ago with a mortgage of £255,000 over 28 years. The house is currently valued at around £330,000 and the mortgage balance currently sits at £244,671. We have just remortgaged for a 2 year fix of 2.34%.

I am 38 years of age and live with my wife and three daughters aged 12, 10 and 5. My mother in law has recently moved in with us and we are currently in the process of converting the garage and building an extension which will become an annex for her to live in.

I started my own business around 6 years ago and we took on a lot of debt during this period which is now almost paid off and the remaining £10,000 we owe is at 0% (£5,000 to my mother in law who wants £100 per month paid until she reaches her pension age) and £5,000 on a credit card which is at 0% until 2018. Therefore these will be paid off before any interest is accrued but I won't be overly focusing on these and will switch my attention to the mortgage instead.

I am fortunate that the business has steadied itself and organically grown over the 6 years since inception so that our monthly drawings are at a point that I can really start making some decent sized over payments.

My plans are to try and clear the mortgage in around 8 years which would mean overpayments of circa £1,750 per month at current interest rates. We could obviously scale back our outgoings to be more aggressive with the overpayments but after a long period of being in debt and having hardly any money we want to try and enjoy this journey by having a couple of holidays each year and days out as a family.

I've received £8.13 in bank interest today on my Nationwide account so I have paid this off the mortgage. I have also had a play with my excel spreadsheet to come up with a better representation of my house so that I can colour it in each month! This is what I have come up with to represent the equity in my house. I almost own the ground floor of the house

The kitchen quotes have all come in and after a lot of bartering I have come in around £3k under budget which is great. I have therefore paid £400 into my dd's JISA and £400 in my S&S ISA. I have also paid £1,355.84 off the mortgage which means we have broken the £220k barrier

My daily interest is now sitting at £14.09 so I think we will dip into the £13.xx by next month.

I have also been going to the gym regularly and I am up to running around 4.5 miles per day (albeit at a pedestrian pace - 10:40 per mile!). I ran a total of 15 miles last week and I've done 17.5 miles this week. I am having a break from the gym for three days now as my legs are killing me and I have a kitchen to rip out over the weekend

I've shuffled some money around and reduced some of the cash we had in our 123 account as the interest will be dropping to 1.5% shortly and my mortgage is at 2.34% so I figured it was better to throw a bit more at the mortgage!

Therefore I've just made an overpayment of £2,500 which allows me to catch up a little bit in the annual targets and takes us below £14 per day in daily interest charges

I've just withdrawn the last of my p2p interest which was £8.54 and paid this against the mortgage. I'm now fully divested from p2p loans which feels right given that the reduction in interest rates no longer warrants the increased risk.

The 123 account has been playing on my mind so I have taken the last £3,200 out of the account and paid it off against the mortgage. I now only have cash savings of £2.5k left in my n4tionwide account which is still earning 5% at the moment. I believe this stops after 12 months so I need to find a home for that aswell soon.

The overpayments this month have been huge but obviously falsely inflated due to the withdrawal of the 123 savings.

I've transferred the last £50 from my current account to the mortgage as payday is approaching! There's not much more financial news to report so roll on next month when the overpayments can start again
Oct 2016 Target

I had a refund today of £54.94 from some extra kitchen stuff that went back. Therefore I've sent this on it's merry way to the mortgage!

The kitchen is coming along nicely and is nearly done now - The tiling is being done today and the skirting and radiators are being done tomorrow and then it should be finished. I can't wait to have a proper meal again after living on microwave dinners for the last two weeks

My normal payment for £1,045 has left my account by direct plus a standing order for an overpayment of £750. I have a feeling that this month is going to be tight as we have a few extra expenses this month, including a weekend away so let's see how it plays out.

My normal payment for £1,045 has left my account by direct plus a standing order for an overpayment of £750. I have also paid another £1,000 off the mortgage today. I think that will be my last overpayment for this year but it feels like I've had a good year overall for overpaying the mortgage.

My mortgage is now £209,620 so not a million miles away from having a 1 in front of it. That will feel like a big milestone! I will do a full review before the end of the year of how things have gone and will sit down and put down my targets for 2017

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